The Joys of Connecting

A response to Joni’s last week's comment lends itself to another side of the importance of connecting.—“Some people place bars on their hearts to protect themselves, unfortunately the person (s) they try to keep out could be their greatest asset in helping to remove those bars…

Continuing the Not Connected Discussion 2:

Read again Joni’s comment highlighting an important communication skill-area. Small, but significant. ”Great article! I have to wonder if "Pete" was connecting with her more than she would like to admit! In dealing with a high spirited, (challenging to say the least), child I found that a…

Not Connected?

During a phone call with a professional male friend regarding a project we were sharing, said, “By the way, in a small group I was in last night one of the ladies said, ‘Pete, you don’t connect’. That has bothered me no end. What did she mean by that?…

Healing Dysfunctional Relationships

Did you ever try to grow African Violets or any house plant? They need very little care, but without water, dead leaves and spent flowers removed and occasional plant food they will disappoint the gardener. As I outline in chapter 3 of my recent book, regular respectful communication is absolutely…

Drastic Measures

A Complete Opposite Resorts to Drastic Measures Summary: (wife-ENFJ: husband-ISTP) Several years ago a wife came for counseling after she had left her alcoholic husband saying “When you quit drinking, I’ll return”.  He was so shocked by her actions and promised to quit drinking. He begged her to come…

An article in my absence

Here is an interesting article from The Atlantic that I thought my readers would enjoy. Research shows that practically every dimension of life happiness is influenced by the quality of one’s marriage, while divorce is the second most stressful life event one can ever experience. Yet nearly half of…

Wordless Messages

Meaningful Wordless Messages To wrap up our dialogue about elements of communication: body language, tone and content  let’s review some obvious—well used wordless expressions which save many words and time. Send me some of your favorite nice expressions that I can add to my list. Warm hand shake.…

Dramatic Body Language

Two comments from An Extrovert’s Listening Insights piece have inspired the following Blog. 1. DRAMATIC BODY LANGUAGE “Unfortunately, there are times when my body language is about 80% and I can't hide it! I used to teach this information on communication, but it was really good to…